How Does a Buddha Listen?

 

08.05.2022 HOW DOES A BUDDHA LISTEN? All day long, life gives us new opportunities to connect with — or, alienate — others. If we want to get things right, it can help to ask ourselves: Is what we want to say true, and helpful? Is now the time to say it? And are we listening with open minds and hearts? Truth, appropriateness, openness: these things are of course not just familiar as Buddhist values but as plain common sense. It’s good to remind ourselves of our capacities here. I know it helps me. So this Weekend Reader is about bringing your best self to all your interactions with others, around the dinner table, on social media, at work, on the subway, in sangha. May the teachings here expand your sense of ease and connection with others. —Rod Meade Sperry, Editorial Director, Lion’s Roar Digital

Listen, Contemplate, Meditate These simple instructions, which appear across traditions, sound so simple that we may imagine they’re self-explanatory. Lama Karma Yeshe Chödrön invites us to look deeper. Seasoned dharma students across Buddhist traditions are likely to have heard some version of this instruction. On one hand, there seems to be nothing much to it. And to an extent, that’s true. Who does not have some understanding of what each of these terms means? They are so simple—and we, so sure we understand—that it may never occur to us to question them.

No Harm in a Little Gossip, Right? When something Darlene Cohen said about a friend comes back to bite her, she reluctantly begins rethinking the value of right speech. My teachers had been advocating right speech for years, but I just couldn’t get into it. You know, you might try to be a better person, but until you actually understand how you’re hurting people, it’s very hard to practice the precepts. I still remember the incident that finally made me consider right speech in a new light. I was very embarrassed and chastened when my friend called me, deeply wounded by my words.

Many Thanks Sylvia Boorstein learns how daily messages of gratitude exchanged between friends can bring insight and the inspiration to practice. Jane emails a colleague every day with a report of what she feels grateful for. The colleague sends Jane a gratitude message daily as well. “It’s not like writing letters,” Jane said, “because we aren’t obligated to respond to the contents of the other person’s message. We are witnesses to each other’s practice. That’s all.” I glanced over at my friend Carol, who correctly read my look as, “Do you want to do that with me?” Carol nodded, “Yes!”

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